Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) On The Way

C stands for common M stands for moderate and X stands for extreme, why not E? Got me. The flash of X ray wasn't big, but it was a long lived event with a pretty good mass ejection, like sun spew that will most likely hit us and cause some nice auroras in a few days depending on how fast it was.

and I'm sure it will be as destruction as the one before
and the one before that and . . .

in other words - NOTHING.

This is nothing. It needs to be up in the high X ranges...like a X-9 or more.

I read somewhere that "The Carrington Event" of the middle 1800's (1859 I think) was estimated to be something like an X-45 and caused the telegraph wires to catch on fire...now if that happened today....say bye-bye to the power grid and all communications...

BUT!....I don't think we will be seeing one of those again anytime soon.

Last Edited by Damrod on 06/13/2012 02:44 PM

From spaceweather.com

As predicted, the sunspot has flared. Magnetic fields above AR1504 erupted on June 13th at 1319 UT, producing a long-duration M1-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the extreme UV glow of the blast:

The ongoing explosion is taking hours to unfold, which means it is very powerful despite its middling M1-peak. Long duration flares often hurl coronal mass ejections (CMEs) into space, and this one is probably no exception. Stay tuned for updates about a possible Earth-directed CME.